I live in a city so gun is not allowed. I think the racoon might damage the fence when it got out, and the rat got in from there. I have to wait until morning to check it out. This is the first time I saw a real racoon. It totally ignored what we were doing until I got the water hose. It didn’t go back onto the ground, so tomorrow I will leave the lights outside on to see what happens.
Does the paintball gun make sound like a real one? Also, I don’t know if the racoon will turn aggressive when gets hurt. It was big like a dog, and I don’t think I can outrun it. 
no. it makes a soft noise like a airgun. as far as i know there are no regulations on them. kids buy them to have paintball wars in wooded courses. the paintballsare non toxic and don’t stain if washed off fairly soon. they have some types of paintball guns used for longer distance more accurate shooting. thats the one my brother has. search sniper paintball gun and a bunch will come up. he actually enjoys the challenge of ‘‘hunting’’ the perpetrators down. only 1 has ever returned after being hit but doesn’t try to come in the garden anymore. its a large grayt squirrel that lives in a hollowed out oak in theyard. his name is Blue. Blue at one time was red, yellow and green. persistent bugger! no, a raccoon will only attack if cornered or injured where it can’t flee. one good hit should send him packing.
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This is where the racoon got out. It is too hot to fix it now. I will put hardware cloth on the roof, where it got down last night, later.
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Those figs look striped like Panache.
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That is correct for the figs in the back ground. The ones in the enclosures and the jam are Garnsey.
I have two Garnsey, one Panache, one Brown Turkey, one Black Mission, and one Janice seedless trees.
The Garnsey is the best but they are very sweet and big. There is no way to eat more than one at a time. We have so many for drying, and the over ripe ones are used to make jam without sugar added.
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Back in the beginning of July, some big animal got in by crashing the wires on top of the gate. It went out by breaking another part of the fence.
This was a different one that came down from the roof. From the picture posted later, I think it took the racoon some time to find the way out. It may feel cornered if gets hurt and becomes aggressive.
I fixed the fence. It was late, so we only could put some 3’ hardware cloth on the roof. Hopefully that will be enough to stop it from coming down. Thanks for the suggestion.
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Everything is quiet tonight. The noise on the roof was lighter the last few nights so I think the racoon didn’t come back.
The rats came a few times at night for the figs and didn’t eat anything else.
I learned a few thing s from watching the cameras.
As long as the wrap at the bottom of the enclosure is tight the rats couldn’t chew on it, whether it is window screen or weed barrier fabric. I used PVC pipes to anchor the bottom with the 6 inch staples and hold them tightly up with clothespins.
Couldn’t get in the enclosures at the bottom, they climbed up along the PVC frame and chewed, or got in at the seams where the bird netting overlapped and not secured. I always use zip ties or twist ties on eveything because It is easy. The rats could use those places as a footing to stop and chew. Knowing where they would go on the frame, I fastened pieces of galvanized steel wire on, roughly 4 inches apart, with the two ends sticking down about 1/2 to 1 inch. The rats really slowed down, climbed carefully while trying to avoid them. After a few times, they gave up. The enclosures are 10 feet high, but I only did the part about 4 to 6 feet on the vertical pipes, and the horizontal pipes in the middle.
I will put some wires on the fence tomorrow. I will make sure that there will be none on the parts that someone can touch and get hurt. I will remove the lower pieces on the enclosures after I am sure there is no more rats.
I usually do the fig drying very late every night, except for the time the racoon came because I was so tired, and the last few days. I wonder what the racoon would have done, seeing me alone with a big tray full of figs.
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Update:
The trail cam stopped working about 10 days ago. The batteries ran out, and it never started again with the new batteries. Tech support suggestions didn’t help. It already passed the 30 days for free return and refund. It is amazing things always go wrong after the refund date expires.
With all the bad things going on, I don’t think we have the energy to go through the process to have it fixed. I just want to let everyone know about the problems, Amazon have them again now. Except for only a few, the reviews give very good comments, but please note that most of them are newly bought so the problems may not come yet
These are relative happy leaves. Others are brown with a lot more ashes, even the one in the enclosure covered mostly with shade cloth.
The air is so dry. We are lucky to only smell the smoke when the wind blows this way, but my daughter work place is closer to the foothill, and the air quality is horrible.
All the fruit trees drop a lot of dry leaves full of ashes. Everyday, while wearing mask, I sweep up the leaves using soft broom to not stir up the ashes back into the air, can’t use the leaf vacuum/blower. Where the bearded dragon may be hiding, to make sure he doesn’t breath in the ashes, I use the hand held vacuum to suck them up, emptying very often to avoid burning out the motor.
We are happy that most of the citrus, asian pears, apples, and persimmons still hang on the trees, and so do the Elephant Heart and Nubiana plums.
The Garnsey trees still produce a lot of full sized figs. Other fig trees really suffer from the heat and only have a few small ones, while the Black Mission has none.
At the end of the day, we are thankful that we still have a place to call home, so no complaint from me. The trail cam did help when we need it
Edit:
Part of the email from tech support said they would send us a free gift if we put a review on Amazon. I don’t know if that was the reason some reviews were four or five stars. when the buyer hasn’t used the trail cam yet. We are not putting any review on Amazon, good or bad. The reason is: our place was too hot the last few weeks, and that might damage the camera. I just want to give them the benefit of the doubt about the quality of the trail cam. If you want to buy it, please check with the seller if you have any surrounding problems.
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I’d probably leave a review with factual information about what I experienced with the camera, including how long it worked and under what conditions it died, and that the technical support offered some suggestions that didn’t work.
The trail cam was under my husband’s name. He has so much extra work preparing everything online for his job already. It was hard enough making him going through tech support, and see the fixing process. I only want to caution our members, since I really don’t know if it was my fault to let it stayed in the very hot air. It is only waterproof, not heat proof.
Edit
The tech support suggested to take all the batteries and SD card out, turn the switch to “ON”, wait at least a minute. Turn to “OFF”, put back the batteries and SD card, and turn “ON” again to see if it works. If it doesn’t work after doing that twice, contact the “after sale” for fixing. They didn’t give any information about where to find “after sale”. I think after some emails, they asked him for order number from Amazon now.
About the “ON/OFF” procedure, when we first had it the unit didn’t do anything, my husband tried that and it finally worked. Nothing helped this time no matter how long he left the “ON” or “OFF” time to reset.
What model camera is it?
It is the Vikeri Trail Camera Model: E2
https://www.amazon.com/Hunting-120°Wide-Angle-Waterproof-Wildlife-Monitoring/dp/B08DJ5WKVQ
I don’t know what is going on with the company, so we will put the review on Amazon. The cost of the trail cam is not much, but there may be other consequences.
Edit
He put the review in this morning but the website " most recent" only showed up to Sept 13. He gave it 2 stars because it was nice when it worked. I don’t know what was in the review.
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The review is listed on Amazon under “2 star by Amazon’s customer on September 15, 2020”
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As of now, the review from my husband is no longer shown on the website. They removed it without notifying us.
The last 2 reviews I wrote there were not posted
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I only wanted to leave the review because the hacker may have the credit card information of the customers. Please note that they added a lot of 5 star reviews after ours disappeared. I would try to buy locally if we want anything else, like what we did with the camera system. It would be simpler if there are troubles, and would support the local business and their workers.
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I have always thought the seller can’t remove a review once posted.
Seems like that is true in this case
For my husband’s review, it probably was removed by Amazon because of the hacking part. Too bad I didn’t print screen that one, as I do with this for the record.
I still have the email but I will not do anything further. I am worry sick about the technician’s safety, but he is in China so there is nothing I can do for him. They have all the personal information from my husband’s account, and probably can trace my kids too, so I can’t do anything to jeopardize their safety. The point is: don’t buy online if you can avoid it.
Today we got the Iceberge rose pots that were on Clearance for $5/each.
We removed the hardware cloth around the Tiger fig tree and put in the new plants. I am too tired to dig holes. The plants stayed in the pots that sit on the ground that will have a thin layer of lava rocks on top tomorrow. I found out the rodents don’t hide on lava rocks, but that will be hard to remove if need to, so there will be some plastic sheet under.
Iceberge rose grows fast but doesn’t have a lot of thorns on new growths. By next year, if the squirrels still climb on the bushes, I will hang the soap slices directly on them.
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I searched this topic for norwegian Rat norway rat (and invasive)
So not sure if it is that but keep in mind if it is that
In My opinion It is more worse to leave these animals as they kill native Wild life that might be at risk
bird eggs rare turtles eggs etc.
Alberta Canada is a large province in Canada that is rat free
I read up on it a lot but copy/pasted something below
Mostly in the 50’s they got the population involved , and since rats like to live by structures everyone chipped in to kill the rats off
(Now if it is a native rat I suppose that’s different )
(copypasted )
“Alberta is the only province in Canada that does not have any rats and is, in fact, the largest inhabited area on the planet that is rat-free. Rats had to come from Eastern Canada, and it’s a long walk, so it was not until the 1950s that they finally reached Alberta.”
Good not to use poisons as it could be bad for a vulture
I know rat poison has some blood thinner medicine in it , or heart medication (warfin) but not sure if that is bad for vultures
Maybe He likes Prunes because he is irregular
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The last two weeks I tried to prepare the backyard for winter. The soap pieces have to be removed before the rain season. That means no deterrent for squirrels. From summer, I know the rats and squirrels main entrance would be from corner of the fence facing the rented house.
I cut off the top of the 1/4" hardware cloth to expose the sharp wire ends around that corner. Standing on a step ladder to pull the top down with a hook on one hand and a wirecutter on the other to snip off the top wire, up about 8ft in the air while avoiding the trellis, was pretty tough. I really don’t know how I did it without any accident. I also cut off the top of the hardware cloth on top of the gates, and the section adjacent to the walls where the animals used to go up the roof.
For the sloped hillside, we have anchored extension ladders on top of the ground wherever we want to go to the top. I just know it is not safe for me to climb that anymore. I have been putting pavers and bricks to make steps toward the top. There were many tunnels under the surface. In the beginning I could smell the live one, and see the dirt disappeared some time after I poured down the tunnels. Lately, seems like there is no more activity. I hope whatever down there, rats or gophers, gave up and moved somewhere else.
The results: we have not lost any apples or citrus fruits, no rodent smell anywhere, and no big noise on the roof at night.
Please note that the exposed hardware cloth is very sharp and can cause bad cut and injury. Please don’t put it anywhere that people may try to get access to the yard and hurt themselves. When I wrap it around the tree trunk, I leave the top intact for the same reason.
Kishu mandarin, The big concrete piece was there long ago
Unknown mandarin
Kishu mandarin
Unknown mandarin
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